Modes (Part 8)

In Part 6 and Part 7 we used George Russell’s theories about the Lydian mode to illuminate some beautiful patterns in the modes of the major scale.

Now let’s make those patterns more precise using a little group theory. We’ll see that the 84-element group

acts as symmetries on the set of all modes of the major scale, in all keys! This group combines the symmetries of the 12-tone scale of black and white keys on the piano (the chromatic scale) and the 7-tone scale of just white keys (the di...